Celebrating the North American FINAL FANTASY XI 8th Year Anniversary!

[Darkvalkyr]

Love it.

[Crocker]

I remember when I got the game just after launch due to no stores having it, then a year or 2 later I got 2 more copies and one of them was banned for no reason. I remember contacting customer support many times over the matter but all they would do is lie saying they filled out a ban complaint, I also tried many times via the chat support and all the did was disconnect from me and the GMs are totally worthless since they cant help you since its another account.

All in all I'm still paying for the other 2 accounts out of my own stupidity I guess but still angry at the piss poor service I received and being called RMT "RMT related activities" is what they called it which I would never do!

[Psxpert2011]

All I have to say is: Bring back Ballista Royal and this will be a 8th anniversary we will soon never forget!

[Rakshaka]

I've played summoner for about seven years now, I remember back in the day when I was doing my Ramuh mini trials. I had landed 2 searing lights and had about 40 hp left. I had summoned a new Carbuncle that didn't have much enmity. I commanded him to use Searing Light, which caused Ramuh to turn on me. I thought I was dead. He took a swing at me before Searing Light landed, and he missed!! Searing Light hit and I claimed my third avatar (Titan being the second after Carbuncle). Other memories include saving my linkshell from an ultima loss by meleeing him to death after almost everyone else had wiped.
Other non-summoner related memories include going through the CoP missions in the early days when they just came out, with my linkshell Prishe. Those missions were brutal. Truesight tauros, unforgiving promyvions, brutal BC fights. Only the dedicated could make it through. I remember Promyvion being so bad. Towards the lower areas, a stray from the receptacle could easy kill a person. The portal after the MR died barely lasted long enough to travel through. At one point we had to break our alliance and group with other people because we had lost so many people that didn't use the portals in time.

[Avidon]

I've spent 1/3 of my life playing XI and it was the best 1/3 of my life.

As far as the implementation of the Monster despawn feature... It was good, but now I kinda miss it. Those days were so crazy. Things could go incredibly wrong in just a few seconds, you'd spend up to a few hours or until you just gave up trying to get everything fixed and then it would just happen AGAIN!!! Good times.

[Dsherman]

I think my favorite fight ending I went through was the Alexander fight at the end of the Treasures of Aht Urhgan Missions (not the avatar). We had gotten it down to a sliver but all but one of us had been K.O.ed. The one that was still up was weak. I was WHM and was able to cast a Dia II on it just before it K.O.ed me (with no reraise since I had just gotten up before this), and after that we only had like 2 or 3 minutes left before time ran out.

We were chatting in party chat with the one person that was still up.. he was going to give it one last shot once his weak wore.

As we chatted, nothing was hitting Alexander at all, and the scene was very quiet. When suddenly, Alexander collapsed and we went into Cutscenes. At first we weren't sure what had just happened... but then we realized my Dia II had killed it.

[Wolfandre]

I'm a baaaaaad person. I started this game when I was 12 whole years old (I'm 20 now...lawl)! And like any kid romping his way through puberty, I started as Mithra.

And boy, every time I walk through Sarutabaruta, or hear it on my (collector's edition) OST I tear up. Some of my personal best times in this game aren't achievements, but just roaming, exploring, and hanging out with friends. Kinda like how I Sneak/Invisible'd my way all the way into Valley of Sorrows as a level 26RDM on my Hume, only to get stomped by an Adamantoise. Or how I did the same and watched an LS eat a Spike Flail back before NA knew how to deal with it.

I do, however, have to thank the original Dev team for the addition of Puppetmaster. As odd as it is, and how often it gets laughed at, there is no other class that can be throwing out big damage one second, the next take over for the AFK WHM and main heal the party. I have found a love for that job I have yet to match with any other job, MMO, or game, for that matter.

To great friends, to a great 8 years, and to great years to come. Thanks, SE.

PS. I met two of my best friends on this game, both of which live nowhere near me. Cheers, Erics, Yuberblacknight, and SE.

[Rexen]

HAHA! Level 1 races! I remember doing one from Bastok to Jeuno, that was so much fun. I was so close to winning, got the the Rolanberry zoneline and agrod a Quadav. Then a Tarutaru friend runs right past one and doesn't agro. Small things like that are what made the game for me and had me playing for as long as I did.

I remember though, asking people why they were kneeling and making crystals appear out of mid air (crafting), trying to run around monsters so they missed me, asking where the Inn was because my health was low haha. I'll always have fond memories of Windurst and Sarutabaruta in this game, spent so much time there when I started farming my clothcraft to level 10. Trying to get Yagudo necklaces and desynthing them for grass thread lol.

[Gropitou]

I remember zoning in to GC and seeing the stairs going down just littered with corpses because of a bad bat link, seems so funny now.

[Kuvo]

I spent the first 7 levels of my Hume RDM in windy. I was alone, didn't really know how to chat with ppl and i knew nothing of linkshells. This was my first MMO. No one told me about the auction house so everything i got i sold to NPCs. Then one day i heard ppl talking about a great city called jeuno and that it was far away. I started to run the path that was told to me as a lvl 7rdm. On the way i met 2 ppl in tahrongi canyon, Daymon and Cherry. Daymon was a pld and cherry was a drg. I was amazed at these jobs and they started to tell me more about this great game. We then formed a party (my first) and went to the maze of shakhrami were we leveled until 15. They became my best friends in the game.

Taking the boat ride to a new land called the Dunes had me so scared being so far from my home in windy that i really didn't want to get off the boat. But i'm glad i did. I met some other friends there that to this day we are still friends outside the game. This was all before the CoP expansion. What great memories I have playing, meeting, adventuring, and so on in this game. Thank You SE.

Shout out to the Lords of Darkness: Pusiwillow, Aaros, Supamak, Radrulous, Kateylyn, Towowo, Chaosmage, Nona, Markkus, Mundus, and Jarson... of Bismark.